Nothing makes sense anymore–so get your tickets now!/Image: Licensed Adobe Stock, Evgeniy Kalinovskiy.
Welcome to the American Experiment Memorial Theater, oppression-loving, rightist, dramaturgical readers! This is the hallowed ground, a ravaged-Earth-ex-fracking site, a highly toxic Superfund site, and a Sioux graveyard upon which foolhardy, oblivious conservative right-wingers built a theater. Inside, producers show theatrical works that perform the offensive work of stage-based musings on the contemporary right-wing life-project. This week, I, Aticket Costshowmuch, the resident theater critic at Spread Your Right Wings (SYRW) bring you news of the five Absurdist plays you simply have to see right now! They all riff on the nonsensical- to-the-point-of-Alice-in-Wonderland state of affairs in Trump’s Washington, D.C. Some find their inspiration in Absurdist works of the past while others simply wing it like a Trump in the White House. Take a seat and read on!
The Heat Is On
So sang 1980s crooner Glen Frey in his ditty by the same name as the subheading above. He was waiting for global warming to kill us all, and now the wait’s over. It’s killing us all, I reiterate, as the extreme weather events–fires, floods, droughts, and more–wreak havoc across the globe in a way that would make the author of the Bible green–but not sustainably so–with envy.
It’s also what the two characters in Nat King Cole Lobbyist’s “Waiting for Warming” do for two hours on stage. They just sit there like idiots, waiting to be killed, much like the characters in Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot.”..well, wait for Godot. You can walk out at the end–or run, because you’re so goddamn (Godot-damned) bored. And you will. You can’t, however, walk away from global warming. You can deny it because the fossil fuel industry is paying you if you’re Congressional Republicans, but you can’t avoid being murdered by it.
“This play, frankly, heralds in a new era in Von Trier-ian, misanthropic dramaturgy as navel-gazing and useless as the first Absurdist movement,” said theater critic Blake Victoria.
You Can’t Make Me
Eugene Ionesco wrote La Cantatrice Chauve, another torturous Absurdist classic. It translates from the French to The Bold Soprano. It inspired his Alt-reflection, Eustice Iowanoo to write “The Combed-Over Kook.” It’s about a psychotic running the federal government of a major world power. So it’s non-fiction.
“I…euh…want to show…euh…how you say?…zee maan character eez…euh…how you say?…completely deranged and going to bring zee end of zee timez. So I doo dat,” Iowanoo said as he exhaled a drag of smoke onto my face, staring at me through the smoke of his Dunhill cigarette.
He then asked me to leave so that he could type into his word processor from 1972 his next play, “The Bald-Down-There-Too Mezzo Soprano.”
Charlottesville Is for Neo-Nazis
The 1980s Chamber of Commerce slogan for the great state of Virginia was, “Virginia Is for Lovers.” Like most state advertising slogans, it was pretty idiotic and meaningless. So, come visit! Anywho, so much for that whole love thing, right? But don’t be afraid of going to the Old Dominion State. And don’t be afraid of its lawmakers! They’re trying their best to inure their state to the constant chaos and lunacy of the Trump Administration. And this is what lucky viewers get to see for two hours in Edward Nonebee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Legislators?” They get drunk and scream at each other like the character’s in Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” after attending a fundraiser for Trump because they don’t want to alienate his supporters. They really hate him–but they don’t want to alienate his supporters.
“I’ve tried, in my play, to capture the horror of being a conservative political policymaker in 2018. You can’t stand DJT or anything that he’s doing, but for some reason, you also can’t bring yourself to speak out. Everyone assumes this is because you want to use Trump’s ineptitude to get things done while he creates silly distractions on the regular. And also…his base, his base, his base,” Nonebee said outside the Off-Broadway-Cuz-It’s-In-Alabama theater, The Jeff Sessions.
Only So Many Ways to Say It
Some plays, like the next one I’m going to Alt-fill you in on aren’t based on ones that came before them. They spring forth in an act of show-biz parthenogenesis from the artistic ether. “I Did It No You Didn’t” is a call-and-response play, if you will, that requires audience participation. The one and only character, the leader of a fictional country called the United States of Fuckerica, President Lonny J. Stump stands center stage with a spotlight on him. He then says, “I colluded with Russia.” The audience, who are given t-shirts to wear upon entering the performance that say TRUMP SUPPORTER on them, responds: “No, you didn’t.” Stump repeats his confession and the audience continues to tell him they refuse to believe him. And so on and so forth. A great use of fifty dollars for all you theater lovers!
And: One of the few things all humans have in common–our genetic hybridity,
We’re Not In Kansa–Or Anywhere We Once Recognized As America–Anymore
American playwright Thornton Wilder penned perhaps the most quintessentially American play, “Our Town,” in the 1930s, about the life cycles of the characters in the fictional town of Grovers Corners. It was set in 1938.
Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play inspired conspiracy theorist and radio bad-personality, Alex Jones, to write “This Is No Longer Our Town. It’s about a family of Mexican immigrants to the U. S. of A. who work for room and board as itinerant farmers. Before they can get their citizenship, illness, a brutal crime committed against one of them, and then ICE sicked on all of them by the Trump Admin, ejects them all from the country. It’s a feel-good date-play for the Alt-right, sure, but it’s also a great movie for the whole family! Take your kids and go out to sup afterward, taking heart in the fact that you’re Christian, white, and don’t have any such problems because of it. Yay!
Grocery Store Candy
Now, go get dressed up only to find yourself staring at the concession stand in the lobby of whatever theater you see these artistic works at wondering, “If this is such a formal affair, why am I being offered Goobers and Snow Caps and Twizzlers?” Sure, they’re delish and all, but really–you couldn’t sell, like, maybe Godiva, at least?
Quick—they’re flashing the lights! You better get back to your seats and not have a clue what’s going on in the play you’re watching but clap and cheer as if you do!
Also: See the long-lost Constitutional Amendment that ended the gun debate forever!
We at Spread Your Right Wings generally don’t like people, the Internet, or interacting with people on the Internet. Seek out someone—in person—to talk to and laugh with about this article. Check back with us as we continue to mock the right wing. Follow us on Twitter at @worstaltlife join our Facebook group, and follow us on Instagram at @worstaltlife. If you simply must get in touch with us, DM us through our Facebook group. Also, please, please see the disclaimer in our About section.
